Shaun Bailey is getting a round of coverage this morning for his plan to exhort companies to drug test employees. He stresses the tests will be anonymised. Though given the Mayor has no power to enforce testing, it seems even less likely that the mayor will be able to enforce anonymisation.  Shaun should set an example and “be the change he wants to see”. CCHQ could test all the boys and girls at Tory HQ, from chairman Ben Elliot down to the interns. Then publish the results…

It is an eye-catching policy proposal, it is also the wrong policy. It will tangle firms in extra costs, the bureaucracy of testing and possible legal challenges. The reason there are violent criminal turf wars is because the product is illegal. Decriminalise the product and you remove criminals from the supply chain. Regulate supply and you can treat addicts as a health problem, not a judicial criminal problem, clogging up the courts, prisons and wasting police resources. If cocaine was good enough for Queen Victoria to legally buy from her West End pharmacist, it is good enough for the rest of us…